


As Below

by RatherOblivious



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Blood, Demons, F/M, Horror, Roadtrip, he's actively trying to kill what are you doing Alice?, seriously stop that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 15:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatherOblivious/pseuds/RatherOblivious
Summary: All Alice wanted was to go on a weekend trip to get away from everything for a bit. Unfortunately for her she's going to get exactly what she wanted, the question is will she ever be able to return to what she knows?





	1. In Which the Pile of Junk Pretending to be a Car Loses its Ability to Can

**Author's Note:**

> This is a failed NaNo attempt from 2012 that I for the most part still like. I'd love to completely rewrite it and finish filling in parts but unfortunately don't have time and won't for the forseeable future so I'll just be doing v minimum editing for formatting reasons and posting it in the chapters I wrote it as. And um that's about it. I'll try to update tags as I come across them in the chapters I'm getting ready to post and will also be keeping the sarcastic titles I have them under in the master document. Erm I guess enjoy?

“No! Don't stop! You can do it you crappy little car! Come on! Come on! You can't stop here! We're in the middle of freaking nowhere! Surrounded by trees and storm clouds and birds and… nature and… stuff… deer maybe? Bears? Wolves? Rabbits? What exactly lives in creepy woods in the middle of nowhere land anyways?”

            That was the moment the engine decided that it was too exhausted to go any further and promptly died with a final loud thunk and a large cloud of acrid smoke.

“And of course you go ahead and die… just because I don't want to get stuck on some creepy-ass possibly haunted stretch of road apparently means that is exactly where you decide to finally give up…”

The girl who had formerly been driving the piece of junk masquerading as a car started frantically digging through the pile of stuff obscuring the back seat while grumbling darkly.

“Stupid car… stupid rain… oh come on… where is that freaking umbrella…”

 She continued flinging a green jacket onto the floor quickly realizing she would need it and diving down to grab it.

 “Where did all this stupid junk come from anyways? There were like, five things when I left. I swear… to… something…”

She paused for a brief moment of celebration after she pulled a dull black umbrella free from the strewn out pile before shrugging on the jacket and sighing dejectedly.

“I think I saw another road back a ways… maybe there's a house or at least something better than this leaky hunk a junk…”

Pushing a few strands of black hair out of her face she sunk back into her seat and began alternating pouty looks between the umbrella in her lap, the pouring rain on the other side of the window and the drops of water slowly oozing in through the web like crack on the top right of the windshield in a vain and mostly ineffective attempt at convincing herself it was a good idea to go out into the wet, and hopefully following that, some form of shelter.

“Why did I have to forget the duct tape… better yet why did I think going on a scenic road trip all by myself was a good idea? Just because I decided I absolutely positively totally for sure needed to go see the largest rubber band ball in the world while I was running on several gallons of coffee and some leftover pizza after staying up four days straight did not mean I had to actually go do it. I’ve gotten lost going to the grocery store and have a long standing feud with the GPS. Which of course culminated with me throwing it out the window, off a bridge, into the raging river below after it told me to turn right to my death for the fifth time in a row, so now I don’t even know what state I’m completely totally lost in… let alone anything useful like if I should be on the lookout for bears or serial killers or something…”

“Like a pack of hungry wolves… or just a regular pack of wolves… or a humanitarian aristocrat who inexplicably lives in the middle of nowhere… or Bigfoot… or…”

            As each horribly unlikely suggestion was made she curled up into herself a little bit more and her voice got a little softer and higher in pitch while she inched slowly into the foot space under the steering wheel.

“Or the hook man… or a yeti, wait aren’t those just Bigfoots but in the mountains of like Tibet or something? Oh no! What if they’re visiting their cousins and and they decided to team up for their favorite activity of hunting people?! Or the squirrels finally teamed up to get revenge for their brethren who got ran over and left as smudges on the road?”

            At this she popped up to quickly roll down the window and stick her head out to shout something before snapping her head back in and rolling the window back up.

“I have never run over one of your fellow squirrels in my life! I promise!”

            She pulled a face as she felt her now wet hair and dug around in the junk on the back seat some more until she found a ragged old Pokémon beach towel and started violently rubbing her head with it before adopting a panicked look and diving back into the fetal position in front of the driver’s seat.

“What if the squirrels aren’t actually there and something else heard me? Like like zombies! Or vampires! Or both! Or a family of inbred hillbillies that want to hunt me for sport … or…”

            A bright light suddenly appeared outside her window startling her into jerking up and hitting her head on the bottom of the steering wheel.

“AAAAEEIIIIIEEEEEEEEOWWWW!!!”

            She then followed that brilliant move with another one by flinging herself headfirst into the passenger side door, as in hurry to get away from the light she stumbled over the half lowered armrest. Fumbling with door handle as she wildly attempted to get it open while she stared at the blinding light in hyperventilating terror.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit shit shitshitshitshitshi…..”

            After several long moments of struggling she finally managed to grasp the handle and pulled it as hard as she could without thinking about the fact that she was leaning heavily on it and then swiftly plummeted to the ground bashing the crown of her head hard and catching herself on her shoulders bending her spine painfully. Then in an attempt to remove her legs from the car and regain upright position simultaneously she ended up a tangled heap with several new cuts courtesy of the gravel road she had just become very well acquainted with. A strong sense of dread soon joining her newfound pain as the source of the brilliant light rapidly crunched around the hood of the car before coming to a stop directly above her.


	2. Why Hello Mysterious Very Attractive Man Who Is Somehow Completely Dry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the start of some holes that needed to be filled in so I decided to include the red text I have as notes on what to add later as notes at the bottom of the chapters

“Excuse me miss are you in need of assistance?”

Oh look the horribly bright light can talk. She wasn’t aware that eye burning balls of luminescence were sapient. Though it was rather rude to assume that they weren’t and  it would probably be wise to apologize for this slight.

“Oh luminous one I am sorry for the false assumption that you were naught but an inanimate object and hope that you can forgive me”

 It settled on the gravel in response, well more accurately the tall man holding it in his black leather gloved hand set it there so he could better examine the tangle of a human for injuries. and if he was most concerned about the possibility of her having a concussion well…

“I’m sure the lantern forgives you for the dismissal, especially since it is in fact an inanimate object.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So then there’s introduction and shit and they talk for a bit as he basically or possibly just straight up carries her through the trees to his house. Before he ends up giving her direstions to a place o change (errr she has clothes in the car with her? Or he loans her some? Idk???)


	3. Welcome to “Crazy Uncle Ben’s” Trophy Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imma be real here the notes and chapter titles of these bring me joy.

“Bathroom… Bathroom… Where in the heck is the bathroom? He said it was just to the right of the painting of the old lady in a red dress, but so far I have not seen a painting of an old lady in a red dress. I have seen a painting of some blonde lady in a blue dress dancing with some old dude in a fancy purple tailcoat and one of a creepy-ass little kid dressed in all white that I still say moved a bit when I passed by but so far no old lady in a red dress have I seen. Nor have I seen anything that resembles an old lady in a red dress in any way shape or form. So apparently now I am not only cold, soaked, exhausted, and bleeding I am also apparently even more completely lost than I was before I started this fruitless search and might actually have better luck finding it if I just started opening doors at random. Or just go into the closest one that isn’t locked and changing in there before becoming even more lost in an attempt to find the parlor again.”

Deciding to just give up on her fruitless search for the mythical bathroom that was supposedly just to the right of the stinking painting of some old lady in a red dress, which she was seriously beginning to think, did not actually exist. Alice finally decided,

“Screw this I am just going to open this random unlocked door and change. I completely refuse to spend another minute in this almost at freezing cold and wet on top of that dress. While it may be all nice and comfy and warm when it is dry it is the complete and total opposite when soaked. Like it is right now...”

            So she went about and turned the handle, which was gleaming from regular use, of the large red wooden door in front of her with a click and then let it go and pushing so that it swung open in front of her on the first set of non-squeaky hinges she had heard all night / horribly early morning. To impatient to even wait until she was fully inside the room she grabbed the bottom hem of her dress and wrenched it over her head with a squelching sound and had it completely covering her head before she was even halfway over the doorframe. This quite conveniently, blocked her view of the contents of the rest of the room until after she had already pulled it completely off, messing her hair up even more in the process. Leaving her to stare open mouthed in a combination of shock, fear, and fascination at the room’s inhabitants while wearing only her blue bra and a pair of green plaid shorts.

            Surrounding her filling in almost of the available space in the room were human skeletons. They were wired together and posed but not like in the stereotypical TV show / movie doctors / school nurses’ office. They were all clothed for one and also just how exactly they were posed. Their clothes were in a wide variety of styles and they were all in gruesome poses, some more obviously so than others. From jeans and some worn band tee-shirt on one that was posed almost like it was sleeping, to one in a glamorous black evening gown with a high slit up one of the sides clawing across the floor its head thrown back in a never ending silent scream of agony, to a tiny one with its head facing the wrong way its neck almost splintered in an old fashioned dress and a white bonnet. Each any every one of them, and there had to be at least fifty of them and it was probably more than that, were in a pose and outfit unique only to them. The only thing they had in common was the fact that every single one of them looked to be some sort of fatal. The lights that were already on when she had entered the room were large industrial florescent tubes hanging on chains from the high ceiling. Installed she imagined for one brief morbid moment, by the maintenance man hanging from a decaying noose in left corner. They also appeared to be on on a permanent basis as after she finally managed to tear her eyes away from the terrifying, fascinating macabre sight they all presented to look for one there did not appear to be a light switch anywhere in the room. Almost as if someone had decided to never let them rest. Ever.

“Yeah… I am so sorry creepy randomly dressed skeletons but I am suddenly feeling that my dire need to change out of my freezing drenched clothes and into dry ones has almost completely vanished in the wake of my inherent terror of you. Now I kind of want them back on…”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So whatever the fuck I ended up naming him ends up finding her in here and freaking the FUCK out. Like full blown stuttering panic all ‘ITS my errr… my UNCLE BENS won-WEIRd as shit collection. Yeah yeah dear old uncle Ben tragic about that strangling vine. Miss him so much he was delish-ITEFUL yeah!’ and Alice is just standing there half naked like ‘what the fuck bro’ and maybe some foreshadowing and shit for her later reality break or w/e in that she’s also like ‘yeah you’re like 160% probably a cannibalistic murderer but you’re also hella cute so maybe???? And then he realizes that her sense of direction is worse than he realized and is like yeah Imma just guide you literally everywhere in here until I ki-fix up your piece of shi-errr ‘car’ because wow this is kind of on the exact opposite side of my mansion than the room I gave you directions for? and it’s almost impressive? Also this way I can creepily stare at you more. And then leads her to a guest bedroom for the night. That’s right next to his bedroom because why not you creep. Suprisingly she falls asleep quite quickly. Also it’s like hella not dusty or musty in anyway and that’s kinda weird since he not only wasn’t expecting company but is literally the only person for miles? Like no employees or anything? What even?


	4. So I’m Getting Lazier so Let Us Have a Really Long and Weird Dream Sequence That Ends in That One Referenced Nightmare / Foreshadowing Thingeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So now we've gotten to both the longest chapter and the one that I finally figured out what exactly I wanted to work the story around. Of course to execute it properly I'd have to rewrite everything else but oh well. That's a project for future Jenna

            The black haired girl who had only recently grown into adulthood and still in some ways very much a child looked around at the crystalline ceiling in awe forgotten with a soft smile gracing her face spun slowly to get the full panoramic effect before one of her shoes made an loud click on the floor and she jumped slightly and snapped her head down to look in shock at the shiny black maryjanes responsible for the echoing noise letting out a small noise of surprise at the light blue dress with a white lace trimmed apron and thick pantyhose she was also wearing. She turned around again quizzically craning her neck in a failed attempt to see what the back looked like before stopping and cocking her head to the side her face scrunched up in confusion at the outfit she did not remember owning let alone putting on. Instinctively she reached up to brush a strand of her bangs out of her face before reaching up in confusion to feel the headband that was holding them all out of the way. This state of confusion and the dilemma that caused it was quickly forgotten and replaced by a grin of childish amazement that swept over it when a tiny little indigo bird flew overhead emitting light that caught itself in the ceiling and reflected out casting a thousand little monochromatic blue rainbows that proceeded to paint themselves all over the cave. Soon dozens of others in all the colors of the rainbow and more followed after it bathing the walls, floor, and ceiling in rainbow glory their trilling song merging together into a majestic, hypnotic symphony. That had her giggling with joy and running after them further into the cave like another more famous Alice following an eternally late rabbit down into Wonderland.

She whipped her head around side to side and spun around joyfully flinging her arms out to stabilize herself, eyes wide trying to absorb everything surrounding her before looking up and realizing that the birds had almost disappeared in the distance. Blinking in surprise and pouting at them she sprinted down to catch up to them she was so single minded and determined not to get distracted from her mission that she completely ignored the narrowing tunnel and the splashing water that started as nothing but shallow puddles and gradually rose till it was p to her knees and she could ignore it no longer. Looking down irately she attempted to glare it out of the way with the power of her rather not – at – all – intimidating glower / pout before looking up and taking a half of a step forward. She froze in shock at the realization that she had reached the end of the she was in and that it let out into an even more spacious cavern than the one she had started out in with one of the tallest of many towering waterfalls that were crashing into the slightly glowing water that seemed to go down endlessly. Unfortunately she had not stopped moving soon enough and was then sent tumbling off the edge heals – over - head and shrieking down with the oddly calm water. Sputtering a bit from her lungs getting filled with water and resuming shrieking and falling for what seemed almost like hours until she finally hit the water with a large loud splash.

She then reacted with great poise and brilliant survival tactics, oh… wait… no she just started panicking. Flailing madly, gulping down lots and lots of water clogging her lungs, staring up at the light from the top gradually growing farther and farther away as she started to sink from exhaustion. The whole nine yards and three hairs from the devils chin ‘cause you know why the hell not. She began to lose hope, gave up and just kind of stared up at the dancing light. Not noticing anything odd until after she had settled down onto the soft sandy bottom and as she laid there peacefully returned to her previous state of confusion when she realized that her lungs had stopped burning and she was still alive and breathing apparently. She pursed her lips, scrunched up her nose and narrowed her eyes as she tilted her head to the side a bit attempting to figure out this conundrum before shrugging and moving to sit up. To her growing confusion this action caused a large cloud of sand to kick up around her and some sort of film sweeping over her eyes giving everything an even more murky look to it and protecting them from the fine grains.

She blinked looking around in confusion for a bit before looking down and jerking backwards a bit at the long black tail covered in thousands of tiny shining scales that began a little under her belly button and went on a foot or two past where her feet had been where it ended and split into two three foot long fins. As she leant forward to examine it more closely she realized that was not the only thing that had changed after she saw the thick swirling silver bracelets that covered half her forearms. She was no longer wearing the dress reminiscent of a famous Queen of Wonderland but was instead adorned with a draped top in that cut off slightly above her newly acquired tail that was made up of a some light flowing fabric of a matching red that slowly danced behind her in the gentle current and left her shoulders bare. She moved her head back and reached her hand up to examine a veil of the same material as her shirt that drifted into view as a result of her action. It was attached to her head by a few clips of the same material and swirling design as her armlets.

            She looked up at some movement she spotted out off the corner of her eye and saw an old battle (or possibly boat propeller) scarred manatee steadily making its determined way towards her in the dim light refracting down from the cave’s crystal ceiling above. She paused for a moment before decided it was not a threat and settling into watching it sedately swim past. She was so enraptured by the sight that she did not make a move or even breath, not that it seemed that she needed to at the moment, until it had almost reached the end of her vision at the dark mouth of another, narrower cave. As she realized this she attempted to jump up accidentally pushing herself into the grit below her sending up in clouds around her several time until she finally figured out a way to swim with her new appendage. Albeit a rather awkward looking manner of kicking her tail down and sweeping her arms forward and to the sides in unison to  move forward and up some before sinking about a foot and a half while she reset herself to repeat, but swimming in definition. By this point the manatee had completely disappeared from her line of sight so she made her way the cave mouth as fast as she could get, about a brisk walking pace, with a hope of catching up to the grizzled sea mammal that appeared to be her guide in this aquatic world.

 As she jerked up to dark cave opened she felt a shiver run from the tip of her tail up and all the way up her spine and sense of foreboding crept up upon her. She shook violently for a moment before shaking it off and entering the shadowed cavern and jumped slightly at the electric zing that ran through her starting at her head and going all the way down her tail to… her toes? Blinking a bit at this she spun around oblivious to her new surroundings looking down at her newly regained legs and feet as well as, to keep with the rapidly developing trend,  her, literally in some places, sparkly new outfit. She looked at the white button up shirt with barely noticeable pinstripes and a matte black bowtie that was under a tight fitting cobalt blue vest in begrudging approval. Before looking further down to the bright yellow skinny jeans tucked into a pair of black high tops that wear laced up with mismatched laces, one a almost blinding in its sparkling blue one that matched the vest and the other a black and white checkerboard, and raising an eyebrow while ruffling her bangs which were left out of the plait the rest of her hair was put up in on her shoulder and then moving on to glaring at the pair of thick lens less black glasses she had originally been wearing.

“Who wears glasses that do not have lenses in them? I mean like outside of a costume they are pretty much useless.”

            A passerby who looked to be attempting to dress in the same odd style as her overheard her derisive comment and quickly rose to the defense of the accessory with surprising gusto and logic for someone who looked to be a new age flower child.

“Because some of us love the look of glasses, but are gifted with the curse of good vision and so are forced to pop the lenses out in order for everything to not be a blur.”

Alice returned to her raised eyebrow of skeptical confusion expression.

“I thought it was something to do with irony but that makes a bit more sense. You can have them if you want.”

            She said as she held them out to randomly appearing girl who smiled lightly in thanks and slid them on before replying.

“Oh no that is definitely part of it as well. Thanks.”

“Ok then...”

She looked around at the carnival like surroundingss. Carnival like since while there were all the trappings of a good carnival, bright booths selling horribly unhealthy but delicious overpriced food items, a dozen or so more than likely rigged games for stuffed toys bigger that are almost bigger than you are, a few small rides all brightly lit and advertised in flowery language that equated to things like will spin fast enough to make you hurl and boring enough your kids can ride it, a rickety old roller coaster with Christmas lights wrapped up the support posts that shook a bit when to many people rode at a time, and that star of it all a towering Ferris wheel that had seen better times its lights dimmed in places and some baskets gone completely dark, there were a few things that just gave it a feeling of wrong. There was not any laughter from children dragging their parents from booth to booth to get them to spend their money in a failed attempt for a large furry toy. Actually there were not any children in the place at all and looking a bit more closely the only toys in the booths, that were all some strange variation of the game where you raced a frog or something by shooting water at a target that went down instead of up and leaning forward and squinting a bit looked like they were her, to be won were giant manatees that had seen better days, cuddly looking German shepherds, and tiny little featureless blue birds. In fact looking around they were the only people in the place and the only sound to be heard was the generic tune they always play in movies when they are in a carnival only slowed down a bit and distorted oddly as if it was going through water or something like that.

“Moving on… I am just going to go out on a limb here and assume you are my guide or something and are going to show me the way to go or maybe I have made it to the end and are going to give me advice or something?”

            Here the bottle blonde gave her a slightly vacant smile before adjusting the red suspenders she wore over a dark gray tank top and replying as she started to walk towards one of the identical booths to their right.

“Something like that. But first let us play a game.”

            She dug around in the pocket of her tie-dyed jean shorts before pulling out what looked like ten dollars of monopoly money and handing it to the faceless carnival worker in a red and black uniform that had appeared when Alice had looked away at the sedately spinning Ferris wheel to watch another of the swinging compartments go dark.

“Two too play please. Do not bother with the change it’s not a problem.”

            The faceless man nodded before reaching down under the counter to flip a switch and light up the booth that began to play a spiraling discordant tune. He held up three fingers and started to count down slowly lowering one at a time. They both grabbed the large metal vaguely gun like things in from of them pushing the button down early in anticipation. As he lowered a final finger a smashing sound signaled the beginning of the race and the guns started spraying what almost looked like blood, but it could not have been right?, in the general direction of the bulls eyes lowering the figure, that up close was defiantly her, down. First through a strip of painted on crystals then on through a equally flat ocean and past a decaying gray blob down farther to where her avatar of herself won by reaching the dark cave full of little white blobs first with a bloodcurdling scream. Her guide for this portion gave her a smile and rose to her mauve ankle boot clad feet before nodding to where the man manning the booth was retrieving one of the stuffed dogs that he then preceded to hand to her.

“Make sure you don’t lose that. It might come in handy.”

            There was a slight cracking noise from somewhere behind them Alice swung to look in shock having grown accustomed to the music being the only other source of noise. She could not see anything that would cause the sound and so attributed it to something breaking. She shrugged and turned back to thank the strange faceless man but he was gone leaving her and the strange blonde who had suddenly adopted a resigned melancholy look.

“Oh… I thought we would have a bit more time… come on lets got to where you need to be. Hopefully before…”

            She flashed another smile at her though this one defiantly had sorrow to it.

“What? What do you mean you thought you would have more time? More time before what exactly?”

            Alice was getting a little bit nervous now. So far nothing had really been a threat more of a down the rabbit hole than a down into the pit of doomy doom but things are always subject to change. Her eyes flickered back and forth trying to pinpoint the source of cracking noises that were gradually growing louder even as she followed her now near frantic guide who was walking faster and faster towards the Ferris wheel that was going dimmer and dimmer with each out of sight crack. The final cabin going out as they reached it, leaving the whole area to be liberally painted in long stretching shadows causing the whole place to be draped with a penetrating sense of foreboding and an almost invasive fear of something. Twirling a long strand of hair her guide grabbed her wrist and began to straight out sprint towards a rundown ‘fun house’ that was revealed after they had passed the final booth of that formed part of the center alley. In a desperate attempt to reach it before whatever was making the now terrifyingly close crunching noises caught up with them. They sprinted towards what would hopefully be their safety as fast as they could stumbling slightly at times and making it in just as it seemed they were caught. The other girl slammed the door and leant on it heavily turning to her with wild eyes pushing the stuffed dog she had won towards her.

“You need to go. Take this with you and make sure not to drop it you will need it.”

            She pointed to the end of the room where there was a tarnished firemens pole that went down into inky darkness. When she saw her hesitation she went on even more frantically as something started to bang on the door heavily.

“ Go now!”

“What about you?”

“You do not need to see this. Go!”

            She pushed Alice as hard as she could towards the pole before bracing herself against the door again. Alice walked the few remaining steps to it before looking back to try to convince her to come with her one last time.

“Please…”

            She watched in shock as the door splintered behind the taller girl and she was sent forward onto the warped wood floor.

“Go!”

            She almost wanted to but was frozen in shock at what or rather who was now prowling through the doorway. It was Sam... but yet not… it looked like him but… not… the thing’s face was like his but wrong its eyes were glowing red and the predatory snarl on its face revealing that its teeth were like little serrated arrowhead and there were rows of them like a sharks had so much malice in it. She could do nothing but stand there crushing the stuffed dog tightly to her while she was forced to watch in helpless horror as the girl who she had just been played a game with was writhing and screaming in pain as she was literally ripped to shreds right in front of her. After several bloody minutes full of wet tearing sounds and sick laughter the screams turned into whimpers that then faded completely. The thing smiled a maniac satisfied smile down at the remainder of her corpse for a bit, now almost completely covered in her blood and a few other bits, before the satisfaction was replaced again with anticipation as it turned its head up to look at her. She still could not move and was forced to meet its red eyes in terror for several minutes as it just stood there watching her before it finally began to slowly prowl towards her completely. She finally managed to regain control over her limbs when it had already made it halfway across the room kicking a bit of debris from the door or little bits of… out of the way and making the old floor creak with each step of its feet making a squelching noise when they were lifted off of it. She stumbled backwards into the pole behind her banging the back of her head and almost falling into the gap surrounding it. The pain was enough to mostly snap her out of the state of shock she was rapidly developing enough so that she turned around, got a good grip and flung herself off the ground and down into the inky darkness below. With the last image she saw before she was completely surrounded by total darkness being its face as it grinned darkly down at her.

            She fell down into through the darkness for what seemed like hours but could have been minutes before she finally landed in another dimly lit cave on uneven wet stone now barefoot. She jumped in shock and dropped the stuffed dog as it started to struggle and she looked on in shock as it morphed into a real dog. It shook itself a little bit before running off almost to the edge of her vision where it stopped and sat on its haunches staring at her as if waiting. Deciding to see if the pattern had continued she looked down at what she was wearing and was proven correct as she was now wearing something different for the fourth time. This time it was a simple long sleeved black dress that went down to her knees and after she ran her hands through it she discovered her hair was just left down with nothing in it. She almost missed the glasses. In hope that she would get to the point of all this soon she started to walk towards the dog. When she had almost caught up to it it then turned and ran off only to stop before it disappeared from her sight and turned and waited. each time leading her  deeper into the cave that was getting narrower and darker the farther in they went with water creeping up and up until it had to swim through it. Until finally it came to a stop in a small dead end cavern with a pillar in the center of it that had water dripping down it from an unseen source that fed into the now waist deep water that she stood in.

Here it turned towards her one final time before it dissolved into a skeleton and sunk to below the water and out of sight. She jerked back in shock only to quickly turn towards the cracking splashing noise coming from the left of her. She could not see what was causing it but she could see the splashing that whatever it was was causing. She then decided that she did not want to know and that she needed to get out of there, now. She turned to go back the way she had come only to see that there was nothing but a wall behind her with no indication that there had ever been an entrance there before. She rushed over to it and started pounding only succeeding in bloodying her hand on the very solid rock wall. She turned around again at the clattering that had joined in the splashing only to hold back a scream at the human skeleton in a soaked green button up shirt that was now making its way towards her opening and closing its mouth as if attempting to tell her something. Backing up until her back was plastered to the wall she just stared at it in fright. Hearing that cracking splash again she looked around at the rest of the cavern and swallowed heavily at the sight of all the water that was now churning with skeletons in a variety of clothing as they rose up and began to move towards her in a vain attempt at telling her something, there she was forced to stand as they all began to converge upon her until the very first one reached her. It shoved its bare skull right up into her face even as she pushed as far away from away from it and into the wall as she could manage, causing the sharp rocks in the wall to dig into the back of her head and shoulders painfully. As she was literally stuck in between a rock, in this case a wall, and well not a hard place but a bunch of skeletons all trying to invade her personal space so close enough she flashed back to the scene that she had seen in the last part of this and the stress and panic and sorrow from that combined with the stress and panic that she was feeling then and caused her to black out, falling down under the murky water. She awoke to the sunlight with a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe have some morning routine/wake up shit here? IDEK


	5. Time for a Spot of Breakfast and Post – Nightmare Flirting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that I've also done a decent chunk of character sketches and art for this that I can probably dig up and post. I'll go find them after I get all the writing sorted out

“It is nice to see you again this morning. Did you sleep well last night?”

            As he said this he began to lead her through a large empty hall lined by towering tapered windows that allowed beams of golden sunlight to drape themselves over almost everything in the room lending an almost enchanted feel to the space, though her mind kept flashing back to the room full of the skeletons of murder victims that were so lovingly dressed and taken care of with such love it had an almost sacred feel about it and the bizarre and terrifying dream she had had the night before once she had finally managed to remove the image of his face after he turned to give the room and it’s macabre inhabitants one last look before closing the door. But she kept trying to convince herself that her eyes had tricked her. They had to have. For why would anyone look at a room full the skeletons of people who had been so horribly murdered and have a look so full of satisfaction and sick intense glee?

            She forced what she hoped to be a charming, or at least not completely and totally fake looking, smile and replied in her absolute best fake cheerful voice, which was apparently quite good since it had helped successfully convince many a person, whether they be a complete stranger or a concerned family member, that she was perfectly fine and the her leg only had some slight bruising and totally was not broken in three places or anything like that. Though that particular very specific situation had only actually happened once, and no, she wasn’t still bitter about the fact that had not noticed her limping or anything, no, not one bit, not one itsy bitsy tiny little completely almost insignificant bit, at all, ok, maybe a little bitty need a really powerful microscope to see it bit, it had after all, made a really loud and distinct cracking noise and kind of hurt, like a lot. So maybe she was a little more like a lot still bitter about that particular incident.

“It is nice to see you again though there isn’t all that much morning left… sorry about that… I slept quite well last night and this morning. Well… after the spirits of the skeleton rooms brutally murdered inhabitants left me alone that is. How did you sleep last night?”

            She finished with a wry little smile at her own honestly pretty bad attempt at a joke. By the time she had finished talking the pleasant, if maybe a slight bit forced looking, little half smile Sam had been wearing since the time she had woken up and had begun to stick to him like glue so as not to get lost and accidently find his great grandfather’s room of body parts in jars or something equally disturbing as that, not that she had told him this, had slipped into a mostly unreadable expression with a touch of curiosity, anticipation, and just enough that sick glee managed to shine through to force herself not to take a step back.

“Yes, well you did spend most of the night either lost or wet so it is quite alright. I actually half expected you to sleep a fair bit longer than you did.

“I kind of wanted to but to tell you the truth the last thing I ate were some cheesecake waffles at Ihop yesterday morning… then I got kind of completely lost and couldn’t even find a gas station… so my stummy wouldn’t let me go back to sleep….”

            At that Sam stopped, turned around and stared at her blinking for several moments while the fingers of his left hand made little twitching movements before raising it about to his shoulder, wetting his lips and then making little gestures with it while opening and closing his several times before finally finding the correct words.

“I keep thinking you cannot possibly get more pathetic but then you say or do something like that and I get even more confused as to how you survived this long and barring that why no one has decided to take care of you all the time, you are certainly cute enough for it. I have also decided that I am not even going to ask anymore about the strange words you keep insisting on using.”

            He finished with an exasperated sigh and strange little smile thing. Now she might have trouble with directions or well more like a complete and utter failure at them but he was making sound like she could not do anything at all. She could do things by herself. She really could. And what was that smile thing for?! He was insulting her! And… wait what?

“I can in fact do things by myself. You just haven’t had the chance to see. I’m glad no one has decided to do that for it would be really freaking annoying and you know kind of a little bit on the creepy side. Hey the English language is a fluid thing and I can mutilate it however I want to. Wait. What was that about me being cute enough?”

“You are right I haven’t had the chance to see such an amazing thing and until then I’ll just have to continue going on my previous observation. You appear to almost need a minder. I’ll take your word for it and continue to silently judge you. Nothing, absolutely nothing, you asked me how I slept last night correct?”

            He finished hurriedly with an awkward and rather obvious attempt to bring the conversation back to the previous subjects.

“Well yes but, that’s not exactly what I want to know anym…”

“Yes well, I slept just as well as I usually do.”

            At this his eyes seemed to glimmer with amusement at an inside joke he had no intention of sharing before his expression returned to the unreadable one he had had before.

“Though there is something you said that I would like to know a little bit more about.”

            Here he paused for a few moments appearing to be crafting his next few words carefully before his glee and curiosity bled through and he continued in an oddly stilted tone with odd pauses. 

“Do you mean to tell me that my, ancestral, estate is haunted by the spirits of my, uncles, collection? And that they can, communicate, with you? “

            At this he fixed her with a piercing gaze full gleeful anticipation that left her feeling very much like a fly in a test tube right before a scientist introduced some poisonous gas into to it to observe the effect it had.

“Maybe, but I don’t really know. They definitely didn’t actually talk to me err probably… played carnival games maybe, That was an attempt at a joke. A particularly bad one I will readily admit but a joke none the less.”

            He gave her one last searching look before his expression fell and he replied.

“Oh, yes it was rather terrible.”

            At this he turned and continued leading her onward to the kitchen, leaving her to wonder about the odd pauses he had made, they normally indicated someone meant to say something else and changed it last minute to hide something but… what exactly had he originally intended to say?

They both ate their respective omelets, his with onions, bell peppers, and shredded potato and hers (after several minutes of persuading and even then liberal use of puppy dog eyes) with chopped bacon and cheddar cheese, in an actually fairly content if a bit slightly awkward silence for a few minutes before Sam fixed her with an inquisitive stare and asked a question that appeared to have been bothering him since she had brought it up in passing about an hour earlier.

“What exactly is an ‘Ihop’?”

            It took her considerable effort to stop herself from bursting into laughter and hide her considerable amusement. Though from his affronted look, that so did not at all help with her newly started war with laughter, she had only succeeded on the count of holding in her slightly maniacal giggles and utterly failed on the count of hiding her afore mentioned amusement. Though she valiantly attempted to suppress it and go on as if his question had not in fact amused her so much. It was still several moments before she could utter a very much articulate and also very much bemused answer in a tone of very much not laughing hysterically at you on the inside.

“What?”

            Ok, so it was much more like a like a flat disbelieving what than anything that actually resembled an actual response but it is the same principal right?  For some reason he seemed to be a bit insulted by her reaction and then real lack of a response and responded with the third different bitchface / pout that she had seen him use in the past nine hours. This particular one she took to mean something along the lines of ‘why are you so amused at my lack of knowledge and completely totally serious question that I will now repeat a second time in the pointless hope of a legitimate answer instead of you laughing this time’ all though she might be reading a bit too much into it though, and so would continue to observe him in order to catalogue all of his separate expressions. Not that she planned on staying that long or wanted to get to know him better or you know liked him or anything like that. At all.

“What exactly is an ‘Ihop’?”

            He repeated being careful to take the time to articulate every single syllable as if in fact that was the reason that she had asked for clarification and not the fault of the question itself. She then fixed him with a light sideways disbelieving stare as she replied with a tone that did its best try at conveying just how obvious she thought the answer to that question to be.

“It is a chain of restaurants that is the butt of at least one joke every time some comedian or comedian want to be brings up places to eat, more specifically breakfast joints, and has what has to be one the most aggressive marketing campaigns I’ve seen outside of politics. Though that could actually be Denny’s commercials I am merging in to up count but… I mean seriously… have you ever left this place… like within the last century?”

            For some strange reason he then developed a slightly panicked look before he visibly forced himself to look calmed down and be amused.

“No, in fact, I have not,”

            He then smiled that annoying ‘I have an incredibly hilarious inside joke with myself that I am so not going to tell you’ smirk and continued one.

“To be completely honest with you I have not actually left this property to do more than help closely stranded motorists since the late eighteen hundreds.”

            To this Alice responded with yet another of her wonderfully articulate responses with yet another this time more disbelieving and a little bit angry,

“What?”

            Pretty much completely ignoring what had to be an admirably not all that terrible attempt at a joke, which in itself was amazing since before this she not been all that sure he actually knew what one of those was, though admittedly that could have been because so far her attempts at them in his presence had been… less than impressive, and went right to full body tackling the main problem as she saw it.

“You have not ever been out of this place? Seriously? I mean no offense it is amazing and all  and I am sure that at one point in time there were other people here for you to talk to and interact with but still… why? I mean I know that your parents kind of hated you at least a little bit, they seriously named you Samuel S something, probably Samus or something like that, Samuelson after all, but never letting you see the real world, the outside world, is way too much and just throwing that out the metaphorical window why did you not go visit or visit or something after they died or find some people or some person to keep you company or something instead of staying her all by yourself for so long?!”

            She spat out with wild hand gestures in shock, a little wild eyed and out of breath towards the end.

“Like you are one to talk, Little Miss Alice Liddell.”

              He pointed out with a self assured smirk and a satisfied glint in his eyes while, rather rudely she thought, completely ignoring the rest of her enraged tirade fueled by her indignation on his behalf.

“They thought it was amusing. Then they thought it fit rather well… To be honest I am starting to agree with them and will do my best to avoid following mysterious white rabbits and falling out into rabbit holes for the foreseeable future... but anyways, it is not like anyone I grew up got the reference.  Alice is a common enough name. Then again maybe it is a good thing you grew up all isolated from other children here. They would have eaten you alive in the early years of school.”

            The small, amused, oddly enough slightly soppy smile that had appeared and then started to grow bit by tiny bit, yes it had defiantly been a smile and not another infernal (but still annoyingly quite attractive) smirk, as she exuberantly defended her naming suddenly dropped as his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Is it now common place for people to eat and be eaten by others? I was, under the impression, that it was, frowned upon, greatly frowned upon.”

            It took her a minute or so to formulate a response to that, partly because he  leant his face forward closer and closer to her as he asked, not that she was anything but a bit unnerved by it, in fact it had nothing to do with the fact that he was that close it was not distracting or anything, it is not like his eyes were breathtakingly beautiful that close or anything, in fact it was mostly because of the fact that he was leaning closer and closer to her with a looked like a combination of confusion and rather creepily hope which is not exactly a combination that one should have while asking if cannibalism was now a common place and not you know illegal thing. And even once she got past that, or more like shoved it into a little box and duct taped it shut and threw it out of the way, it still took her a bit of staring at him and blinking in a blank manner for her to accept the fact that this was not an example of his newly discovered sense of humor before in an as flat and devoid of emotion tone as she had ever heard her voice go she got around to replying.

“Not in the way you are thinking no. it is just an expression. Though it is in fact not just greatly frowned upon, it is in fact seen as just so wrong that that is such a very large understatement it is almost funny/ in fact it is seen as so wrong that public opinion believes that there is something seriously wrong with anyone who does it that they are so beyond saving that they are more commonly referred to as horribly sick in the head, or monsters, or just plain evil.”

            He scrutinized her as he carefully worded his next question.

“And what exactly is the punishment for such monsters? Hanging? Burning at the stake? Quartering?”

            She yet again wondered just what the fuck had been wrong with his parents to make them raise into the way he was.

“Ummm… no, more like life in prison, lethal injection, maybe the gas chamber, depends on what state you are in. I have no idea about the rest of the world. I think the French finally stopped using the guillotine in like the seventies. Could be wrong though… that has been known to happen from time to time…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow just straight up rewrite that whole fucking scene. Like there’s some hope for it but it needs a total overhall.
> 
>  
> 
> And insert the two days that she’s been in the mansion here. Included in this will be awkward flirting on both parts. Genuine affection also on both parts, some more forshadowing to the fact that not only is he a fucking humanitarian demon serial killer who’s been at it for decades but shes not exactly baseline human and despite rocky beginnings their relationship might actually end up like almost healthy at the end of all this? WTF Also more dream interactions with hipster girl because those are hella fun and I can. Like foreshadowing they can be foreshadowing and conflict. Like dude you killed my dream girlfriend, err well this girl that you murdered and keeps showing up in my dreams that I flirt with just as much if not more than I flirt with you.


	6. So Apparently That Worry About a Lone Serial Killer Earlier Was Completely Justified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And sudden cut back to super short chapters. Also Sam is a demon. Not sure if I mentioned that anywhere yet

            So, she was lost, again. She had thought that she could now get from the room Sam had let her stay in for the past two days two the kitchen area where her host hopefully was but no, in that assumption she was horribly mistaken. It was not like it was all that far and the door was different enough from pretty much all of the other ones that she really should have been able to recognize it if she went past. She had after all only seen four red doors so far in the whole entire building. The kitchen where she was hoping to go, the very creepy ~~trophy~~ skeleton room, the room she was staying in, and a room his tallness and handsomeness had designated to be the library, so if she found one of them there was about a twenty five percent chance it was the one that she was looking for. In her musing to herself she walked right on by a large red door that seemed that is might be familiar. Her dejected pout quickly morphed into a triumphant grin as she turned the handle and began to prance inside. Her demeanor changed a few seconds later though when she realized that this room was defiantly not the kitchen.

            She quickly began to back out of the room her eyes wide and her breath shortened. The entirety of her vision narrowed down to just the large puddle of rusty congealed old blood carpeting the floor and then panning out to the rest of the room that looked like it might have once been green beneath the layers upon layers of caked on dry blood that looked to have long since seeped into the walls and calcified to almost black in some spots. The metallic coppery dead stench of it rolling out of the unsealed room in waves almost overpowered her causing her eyes to water heavily and her stomach to lurch heavily. Her progress out and away from it was stopped abruptly as her back collided with something solid that she did not recall being there before, not that that really meant anything as her memory for exact object placement was about as great or not great as her sense of direction and had resulted in many abused shins in the dark of night (and sometimes the bright of day as well), she jumped forward and whipped around in alarm to look at what she had backed into. Only to meet the now familiar brown eyes as they slowly faded into a deep red and began to shine with the now terrifying malicious anticipatory glee.


	7. So Apparently She is Psychic… Wow Like None of What I Originally Planned is What is Actually Happening…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is acting as a time capsule of sorts into my mindset back then and I'm not sure what to feel about that tbh

She froze staring into the eyes that had been burned into her mind in a dream as they tore a friend, had she really been a friend or had she just creation of her mind?, to pieces in front of her and suddenly remembered the incredible coincidences she had had in her childhood where something had always appeared to guide her to some unpleasant truth. Her Uncle’s old, dead, Yorkshire terrier showing up and leading her through a tornado to show her its former owner as he took his last breath after he had been in a horrible plane crash over the Rocky Mountains, her grandmother coming through a mirror to give her last goodbyes before the news of her death had even reached her parents, her calico cat playing tag with her in the checkerboard woods before it grinned at her one last time and dissolved into bones that fell from the tree it was in with a final clatter. Her parents never did get why she didn’t even bother to go looking for her beloved pet when he went missing. Why didn’t she act upon the dream she had had. She should have known better. While she had never told anyone about them they had never been wrong before… she could not have been so enamored with him that she would completely ignore her instincts. She was not that shallow was she? Well apparently she was.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So violence and shit yay?! And hella creepy/messed up flirting I mean it’s pretty much exactly the same as what they’ve been doing throughout all of this mess of a book but with the whole actively trying to murder and eat her thing he’s got going on it’s got a bit different tone to it. Also what the fuck why is she responding to this with deadpan sarcasm? Anyways she ends up getting away with some claw marks and stumble-runs trying to find a way out… it goes about as well as you’d expect at this point… Also some iiiiiiinteresting supernatural shit is starting to happen with her that leads to her slowly starting to get more of a background and/or confidence.


	8. Two Birds Die in an Extremely Cramped Parking Lot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is when my notes started to get more go back and add/fix this and slightly less I don't want to write this bit rn so I'll leave a reminder to do it later

“Well whatever is in here cannot possibly be worse than what I just left.”

Alice said as she pushed the double doors open to slam against the wall with a disturbingly loud crash freezing for a moment as she gasped at the vision that they revealed as they swung. Beyond the rang of the doors lay a large and partially enclosed field that was slowly being strangled to death by some form of climbing vine that was doing its best try at choking everything contained within and was very close to succeeding in its macabre goal. The little of the fading sunlight that managed to find its way around the large balcony that was suddenly much more intimidating than impressive as it would have been earlier or through the thick leaves of the large imposing almost threatening trees, but that could not be right, how could trees be threatening? They are… well… they are trees… doing nothing to add any sort of warmth and in fact somehow managing to make the already disturbing view of rows and rows of dozens and dozens of cars and trucks of all sorts that were all packed into the sprawling space like it was the world’s most claustrophobic parking lot.

            She fought to keep her knees from giving out on her as the entirety of it hit her in a startling revelation. That these many, many sadly abandoned and deteriorating vehicles had once… they had… they had once… they had all once… belonged to Sam’s other victims. And hers might even be in there somewhere as well… her poor useless piece of junk that she had bought with her own money and everything when she turned eighteen and moved out despite of, because of, empathetic protests of her supposed inability to take proper care of herself that had eventually gotten so strong that she had ended up cutting all ties with pretty much everyone she knew and picking everything up and moving halfway across the country, this was before she began her longstanding feud with the GPS though she still ended up stopping for directions and turning around several times in the process of getting there, just to get away from them all and get a few moments of relative peace and quiet. She still hadn’t  reinstated contact with any of them…

            She suddenly felt a strong burning sensation as the absolutely delicious slice of apple cobbler she had ate just an hour ago, had it really only been an hour since her life went to hell in a cramped hand basket? Fought to come back up into the open air as the crushing realization that they might not notice, that they had absolutely no way of knowing, that she had gone missing was dead hit her like a sledgehammer to the gut and she barely succeeded in fighting back tear when after a few moments of frantic scouring through of her memories that while there might be a few people who would miss and mourn her the only one that was in the position to, that had any way of knowing, that she was even missing and presumably dead would be her boss but he had outright told her with an amused smile that while she was only requesting a few days off he knew just how bad, no horrible, her innate sense of direction was and that as long as she was back by the end of the month that it was fine  and on top of that he also knew that she had left her phone in the pocket of her favorite pair of old worn-out jeans the last time she went to the Laundromat and had yet to procure a replacement for it, not only because of the fact that she kept forgetting but also because of lack of funds, just because it was on sale did not mean that she absolutely had to buy a hundred dollars worth of bacon, even if she had frozen most of it and was now set for the next five months or so, and so he would  not have any way of knowing that something was wrong or even suspecting it for a few weeks at the least.

            And by then it would be far too late and she… she would be… she would be in the room with… she would have… she would have already joined the other skeletons of his victims in that horrible room… just another now faceless trophy to join countless others and if they ever did manage to find out they would eventually just end up using it as the final ultimate undeniable proof of her innate uselessness, anyways, they never would, after all she was just Sa-he had been doing this for who knows how long, but judging by some of the models of vehicle she could see, like that model T over there, it had been a very very long time he had somehow managed to get away with it this long so why would the disappearance of and eventually heavily suspected death of one useless little nobody little girl who already had well know problems with directions, so they might just think she took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere she should not have, which was exactly what happened but even then they would never suspect in a million years the details, change his record any? And even if it did and they did find out what he had has been up to. What then? What good would it do? Chances are they would not be able to stop him.      Here she looked down at her newly mangled ankle and the urge to throw up grew even stronger. As she finally took in just how deeply his claws had torn into it and his face as he had done it threw itself into the front of her mind. Just how it had been so completely demonic and inhumane and yet somehow it still had had just enough of the Sam she had gotten to know in these past two day showing through. That she could not stop herself from wondering obsessively just how much, if any, of the emotion that he had shown to her had been genuine or had they all just been faked in order to lure into a false sense of security. Because if they had it had worked wonderfully, in fact she had even begun to care about him. A lot maybe even a bit of trust in fact maybe she even began to love him a bit in the short period of time she had known him. Despite the fact that ever since she had arrived she had instinctually known that something was not right. Something was, wrong, about the manor, about him, even though only in, actually no, not even in, the wildest part of her imagination did she ever… could she of ever even suspected that the truth of why would be so… so… it could not all be? He could not have faked it all though? Right? Right?

The thought of that horrible yet, terribly, very likely scenario was just enough to finally give the one last push to the battering ram of emotions and experiences of the last hour, mostly despair, to get it through the fragile wall she had hastily managed to throw up around all of her emotion except for her pure and violent desperation to escape this horrible situation with her life still intact, causing it to shatter into about a gazillion little irreparable pieces and causing her to finally collapse into a huddled sobbing wreck at the horror movie her life had so suddenly become.

            Her loud, sudden, sobbing then startled a dull tiny emaciated sparrow from its hiding place by the wall with a pathetic chirp and a fluttering of tiny frail wings that started her into jumping back into the doorway with a loud startled shriek that descended into a pathetic whimper as she snapped her head back to see what had made the noise and movement just in time to see as it got snatched right out of the air by a one of the thick, yellow, thorned vines that blanketed the lot before in a flash is was jerked back into the cab of her piece of rusty junk she oft claimed to be a car where with an echoing crunch its feeble protests came to an abrupt and implied  to be quite gruesome end. Her expression drooped and her eyes widened as tears continued to stream down her face while she started to hyperventilate with rapidly failing attempts to stop her mind from just completely breaking down from the stress and shock that kept violently attacking her at every turn.

            After several silent long drawn out minutes of glassy eyed, empty headed, sightless staring her tears slowed to a stop and as the last one dripped from her chin she stopped fighting it and lost. Her whole being seemed too change as everything that she was, everything that had previously made her who she was and, in truth, really everything that had previously made her up whole identity disappeared as it was steamrolled and replaced with all that she would need to survive and after that function on some level. Her spine straitening, her shoulders rolling down and back some then setting in a show of arrogant determination, she rolled her head back and forth cracking it as her lips formed a barely there sneer that grew into a fully fledged and cruel smirk as she pulled herself back onto her feet observing her surrounding once again with her now cold, dead, emotionless eyes.

“Well what do you know, I was wrong. So I guess I get to play a little bit then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so there really needs to be some hella foreshadowing in the earlier parts for the lead up to well this whole emotionless violent shell of a person. Like at least some weirdly blank emotional responses? Or maybe some inner thoughts about remembering to feel an emotion?
> 
> Anyways after this she ends up getting through/around the murder vine somehow? With her new/released coldness combining with her rapidly emerging supernatural shit somehow I guess. And ends up leaving a nice little note on a window or something for Sam, in her own blood of course because of course she does, before heading off to find the rom-com-not-actually-frat-bros


	9. Why has Everyone in This Book Decided to Flirt with Each Other? Oh and a Successful Escape.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just going to post this with no comment

“Dude come on! It is supposed to be just over this hill and through this other little patch of woods.”

            “And over the river and there we go to Grandma’s house we go. Kevin and for the record I still think this is one of the more terrible ideas you have had. Just because you want to impress your boyfriend does not mean we have to go trespass at some, more than likely dangerously dilapidated old abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhereville to do so.”

“Dude! He is not my boyfriend!”

            The enthusiastic blond cut in harshly with an exaggerated whisper at his sarcastic friend who was nowhere near as enthused about potentially breaking into some old broken down house as he was before continuing in the same stage pitch.

“And dude not so loud! He might hear you…”

            Here the shorter of the two rolled his eyes in exasperation before obliging him as he lowered his voice before responding.

“Oh Batman forbid the boy you’ve had a crush on since second fucking grade finally gets a clue of your hopeless infatuation. You two are practically perfect for each other,”

            He mocked adding one last part under his breath.

“ _You’ve only been obliviously flirting with each other for the past six years…”_

“Dude! I said that like once when I was like five, will you please stop bringing it up every time you feel the need to mock me?”

“You said it at least once a week until about freshman year and even if you had only referred to Batman as god once I would still bring it up every chance I got because it is fucking hilarious _and_ on top of that it annoys you. Are you going to stop your annoying lovesick pining and then pathetic hopelessly soppy lovesick gushing at me? And then finally put your big boy pants on and ask Greg ‘ _who dude has the most amazing green eyes in the whole entire world’_ to go on a date with you? Because it’s finally gotten to be much more annoying than it is funny and I assure you he will say yes. If he doesn’t then I give you permission to hide out in your room to pout or whatever for a few months while I make him regret it. We can tell your boss you caught some horrible disease.”

“Did not. As you say if the other party doesn’t have any viable proof then it never happened and you don’t  have any proof so it didn’t. Dude! He would never talk to me again… and dude I so do not sound like that. Or say dude in like every other sentence.”

“I do so love it when you give me proof of my successful corruption of you and that’s quite true. Unfortunately for you though in this case I do. For you see, your mother is an absolutely amazing woman who just so happens to also be a wonderful and willing source of quality blackmail material. Can you say celebration of winning the regional baseball tournament final or what? No he would not. That is something quite obvious to anyone who meets two requirements one – they have a pair of eyes and two – they use them to look at how you two interact with each other. And if he has somehow been replaced by one of the pod people or something I’ll just do the same thing you did to my first ex-girlfriend except for somewhere around hundred times worse because as you often point out, I’m a horribly and evil individual. You on the other hand do not have me convinced yet. And yes you really kind of do. On both counts.”

“Traitors the both of you… she only likes you because you have somehow convinced her you are nice and polite when you so are not. But dude… you have seen me naked. And no dude I so do not!”

            Showing his impeccable natural sense of timing the third and final member of their little breaking and entering party a brunet of average height arrived through the trees just in time to overhear the last bit and then develop a crestfallen expression before quickly hiding it with a fake grin and butting in with his own two cents.

“You guys really should try to keep you sex life to yourselves.”

            This generated two very distinct and different responses one was comprised of hysterical laughter while the other was Kevin gaining a shocked and completely panicked look before attempting to correct him with a stuttering only semi-coherent rebuttal.

“What!? Dude! No! Me, Kyle, we grew up together! Ewww… we are like brothers. Bros… and dude I like like like you and have for years… so dude that would be like… SHIT!”

            At this Kyle’s laughter grew even louder and more out of control as he saw both of their reaction faces to the impromptu confession and almost fell over. It took him several minutes to calm down enough before he could snort out a reply.

“I am not gay. You should both know that by now. Although the both of you rather obviously are and if want to go ahead and finally resolve all that unresolved sexual tension you have both been building up since we all went through puberty then I have no problem with it as long as you give me enough of a warning so that I am able to get out of the of the area before hand because I do not want to see that.”

            At this the other two blushed and quickly looked away from each other breaking the stunned eye contact they had had since the blond’s deer in the headlights accidental confession who then attempted to wrestle back some smidgeon of control over the conversation again by piping up with.

“Dude, I am not you, if the situation ever comes up where it is applicable I will actually give some form of warning to someone if I am going to be having wild sex on _someone else’s_ couch. Anyways dude we are almost there.”

“Seems like that is a bit of a sore spot. Though I have got to know, someone else’s couch?”

“Yeah dude, when first moved out of our parents’ houses and into our apartment we had a party and…”

“Do not tell him that! You said you would stop bringing it up all the time.”

“Turn about is fun dude. And we may or may not have gotten a little completely drunk in the process. So in the morning after that I get up with a, absolutely murderous hangover and shamble into the kitchen like a half rotten zombie to get some aspirin and a bacon sandwich and then I turn around to get an eyeful of him and his girlfriend of the week getting it on on our couch. Still have nightmares sometimes.”

            At this Greg turned to Kyle with a smirk.

“Do not worry, because we’re not exhibitionists and to save your poor eyes from being scarred we will put a sock or one of those hanging door sign things that says hot gay sex in progress past this point or something on the door knob.”

            Here Kevin just up and stopped walking with his face returning to its boiled lobster red blush and his mouth hanging open.

“Wait what, dude, dude you do not like… hate me forever now? Dude…”

            The brown haired man smirked at him and Kyle yet again rolled his eyes at his obliviousness.

“Obviously not. You are after all one of the most amazing…”

            The shortest of the three faked gagging before interrupting what would soon become more of a chick flick moment.

“Look we are here. Tragically you are both going to have to stop with your sappy declarations of love. Such a shame right?”

            Thankfully for his continued sanity, the little that existed anyways, this was enough to sidetrack them for a few minutes as they stared in awe at the sprawling surprisingly well kempt grounds and mansion before one of them voiced something that was bothering him.

“I thought this was abandoned decades ago. Why are there lights on inside?”

            They all exchanged confused looks before they were distracted by sudden movement originating by one of the windows. They all leant forward as they squinted to see what is was before exchanging another round of now even more confused and slightly alarmed looks.

            What they saw was what looked like a slight young woman leaning heavily on one of the outside walls with her left hand. Blood dripping down between the fingers of her right hand that was clamped over her mouth, to land on her left foot and then begin to pool upon and be absorbed by the half dead grass she stood upon in her bare feet. After a few moments to steal herself she pushed off and began to run at a pace only slightly faster than a walk with a heavy limp as she attempted to reach around where they were standing, while seemingly blindly trying to avoid tripping over or colliding with the numerous bushes, rocks and small trees that were scattered as to where they grew across the property. As she sped nearer they realized that the reason she was limping was due to the blood rapidly oozing from what appeared to be large and deep claw marks on her right ankle and that they were not winning in the contest for worst injury she had somehow gotten in the old house that was apparently not so abandoned. She was covered in shallow cuts that looked rather like she had fallen into a rosebush, if said rosebush was several yards across and had two inch thorns, and had several dark purple bruises on her the worst being on her wrists and shoulder, her right eye was swelling shut and as she moved her hand to help herself maintain her balance the source of the cascading blood was revealed to be the fact that her lip and part of her face was split open and gushing in what appeared to be the latest of her ordeal, a rather deep looking cut starting from the top of her bottom lip and extending up and slightly diagonally up to about an inch and a half below her right eye. Her eyes widened a fraction when she realized that the were there, before her expression returned to a cold neutral one that then morphed into a dead eyed slightly lopsided smirk that stretched the cut causing it to bleed even more than it was, though that did not seem to faze her at all since she did not give any indication that it hurt, though before she had noticed them she had shown that it had. When she finally reached the spot they were standing she came to a slightly wobbly stop directly in from of them and her smirk grew truly deranged though her eyes remained like that of a broken doll.

“Hello boys, you would not terribly mind giving little old me a ride. Would you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then we get some fun stuff about h them reacting and her preeeettttyyy much just straight up stealing a car. And then going home. To disastrous results because Sammys kinda a major creep and at this point she’s hella not baseline human anymore. Cue cat and mouse game of outrageous flirting on both parts because what the fuck why not. This is already fucked up lets make it worse. You know what why not have her continue to hang out with hipster chick in her dreams who’s trying and failing to bring her back to sanity/not her weird ass relationship with Sam. Wow that is not a fucking healthy poly relationship… aaaaaaand now I kinda want to have it end with him involved with hipster chick in someway too to make it an actual poly relationship instead of Alice just so happening to be in separate relationships with both of them. Holy shit this is going to end up so fucking messed up…


	10. Random Running and a Surprisingly Upbeat Possible Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yup that's right it's over now. Or at least mostly. There's legit like outtake scenes next that don't fit in chronologically after these so those'll go up in a bit

            She barley resisted the urge to laugh, and not the cruel feeling less mockery of one she had been using for the past few months, but a real genuine one absolutely full of mirth. As she cut through someone’s slightly miss kempt but obviously well used yard. The smirk that she had settled on had actual emotion in it for once and was threatening to turn into a real smile for the first time since before her life had almost been destroyed and this whole mess of a game of cat and mouse, though just who was the cat and who was the mouse was almost up for debate at this point, had began. It pulled awkwardly at the raised dark pink scar that marred the right side of her face from her bottom lip almost to her eye giving it an even more lopsided look about it. She flung herself to the side and swore as a small yapping dog came barreling at her from under the porch where it had apparently been lurking unseen causing a few strands of choppily cut black hair to whip into her eye.

“Looks like I am going to have to take a pair of scissors to it again next time I stop somewhere. It is getting annoying again.”

            She swept it back behind her ear before yet again dodging the determined fluff ball one more time and then launching herself over the wooden fence. Her progress was then halted for a few precious seconds as the tip of the fence snagged the back of the old oversized leather jacket she had picked up for six bucks at a thrift store about a month ago and wore over the slightly to small tee shirt for some little radio station, that had set up a little contest at a gas station she had stopped at a week ago, that she had entered on a whim and to her muted surprise had actually won. After she yanked it off, tearing the lining slightly, she attempted to turn and start running off again but felt a surprising resistance and prickling sensation attempting to stop her movement. She looked down and swore some more as she realized that she leapt right into the middle of an overgrown yellow rose bush that had decided it wanted to give her a hug and not to let go of her worn out jeans that still had her driver’s license in the back pocket, even though it was useless since it was (insert what happens after I send an old gift card through the wash her) and she was wanted in about six states for petty crimes, along with the fake ID she had picked up back in Maryland for a hundred fifteen bucks, the paperclip that she had latched onto the top of the left front pocket so as not to lose it before she left on her initial ill planned trip that had now rusted into place, and the a nickel and a an tarnished smashed penny jingled in her right front pocket jingling merrily together, that  used to fit her perfectly but were now a little bit loose due to the weight that she had lost while on the run were tucked into a worn pair of combat boot half held together by strips of green and blue plaid duct tape. She hitched a heavily sharpie green backpack that held a few socks, some extra underwear and a few more tee shirts, she had found two days after she had first began running abandoned at a bus stop holding nothing but some leftover Halloween candy and a dead disposable lighter. Before impulsively turning to meet the red eyes of her pursuer giving into the urge and flashing him a maniac grin accompanied by a euphoric laugh and ripping herself out of the clinging bush to begin her destination less sprinting yet again.


	11. Here Have Some Random Stuff I Could Not Fit In the Actual Novel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here's the very accurately titled random stuff, I'll go through my folders and see if I can find any of the art for this tomorrow and then figure out how to post images on here. Until then however this is finished so yeah.

Surrounding her filling in almost of the available space in the room were human skeletons. They were wired together and posed but not like in the stereotypical TV show / movie doctors / school nurses’ office. They were all clothed for one and also just how exactly they were posed. Their clothes were in a wide variety of styles and they were all in gruesome poses, some more obviously so than others. From jeans and some worn band tee-shirt on one that was posed almost like it was sleeping, to one in a glamorous black evening gown with a high slit up one of the sides clawing across the floor its head thrown back in a never ending silent scream of agony, to a tiny one with its head facing the wrong way its neck almost splintered in an old fashioned dress and a white bonnet. Each any every one of them, and there had to be at least fifty of them and it was probably more than that, were in a pose and outfit unique only to them. The only thing they had in common was the fact that every single one of them looked to be some sort of fatal. The lights that were already on when she had entered the room were large industrial florescent tubes hanging on chains from the high ceiling. Installed she imagined for one brief morbid moment, by the maintenance man hanging from a decaying noose in left corner. They also appeared to be on on a permanent basis as after she finally managed to tear her eyes away from the terrifying, fascinating macabre sight they all presented to look for one there did not appear to be a light switch anywhere in the room. Almost as if someone had decided to never let them rest. Ever.

“Oh… wow… this is awkward… for some reason I suddenly really miss the feeling of my soaking wet dress on my skin…”

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, this stuff can get out coffee stains to right?”

            At this revelation Alice took off her coat and socks and stuffing them into the washing machine to join the rest of her last three weeks worth of laundry before she shrugged and shucked her jeans as well. Then ignoring the shocked gasps, odd looks, and understanding laughter she shoved those in to before pouring in what she thought looked to be right about the correct amount of detergent and accidently slamming the lid shut before pushing the button to start it up. Then she grabbed the worn out copy of ‘Bewere’ she had rediscovered when she had finally finished unpacking the day before and settling on top of it to lose herself in it for the next half hour or so while waiting for her laundry to be done. About ten minutes later while she was about to once again caught up in worry about whether Lillian would be able to escape or not even though she had already read it dozens of times she finally figured out what the cause of the niggling sense of that she had forgotten something that had been pulsing in the back of her mind since she started her washing quickly came into focus. She then sent a series of paniced looks from her bare legs to the running washing machine she was seated upon before the shocking realization finally sunk in.

“oh shit! My phone!”

 

 

“I thought this was abandoned decades ago. Why are there lights on inside?”

            They all exchanged confused looks before they were distracted by sudden movement originating by one of the windows. They all leant forward as they squinted to see what is was before exchanging another round of now even more confused and slightly alarmed looks.

“Are those monkeys?”

“It looks like it.”

“Close, but to be a bit more exact it looks like they are ninja monkeys…”

“What?”

            And indeed once you stopped rubbing your eyes in disbelief at the sheer supposed impossibility of it. There was in fact a troop of five little monkeys wearing all black jumpsuit sort of things that only left their the tip of their tale, their paws, and ears with a sliver open to allow you to see their black eyes and the very top of their nose that for some reason were trying to break into the property with their banana shaped throwing knives. Oh wait… no… that is the wrong story… never mind… here is what actually happened.

 


End file.
